


Carolina

by almightygwil (elllie)



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018) Actor RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Professor Gwilym Lee, Smut, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 06:48:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29397921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elllie/pseuds/almightygwil
Summary: Your professor is colder than you're used to, but some unforeseen circumstances bring the two of you a little closer than you should be.
Relationships: Gwilym Lee/Reader
Kudos: 2





	Carolina

**Author's Note:**

> carolina // harry styles

Journalism was not your strong suit, that much was obvious. You weren’t sure why you had even taken the class; there were plenty of other courses to take for your breadth requirement, but journalism drew you in. You had planned on dropping the course before it even started, but of course, you had forgotten, so of course, you had to go to the first day of class, and _of course_ , your professor was gorgeous.

You couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was about him that drew you in so. Doctor Lee was, to say the least, cold. You had easily built up a rapport with the rest of your professors within the first few weeks, but you felt nervous just at the sight of him, unable to bring yourself to even do an introduction.

Everyone knew about Doctor Lee—even your neighbor, who had never taken a class from him. He was entirely middle-of-the-line. No one loved him, but no one really hated him either. He was serious, never warm but sometimes relenting, when situations called for it. Secretly, you knew, he must have been a softy. It’s why when a girl’s dog died—someone from your study group—he dropped her assignment for that week. He must have cared, he just didn’t want to make it too obvious.

Gwilym had watched you all semester, how you scribbled down notes furiously, practically trying to copy down everything he said, and how you listened so intently that sometimes he thought you were the only one paying attention, but you did poorly on assignments and tests, something he didn’t understand. No one who worked that hard could do so poorly, especially not in an introductory journalism class. You seemed to be a constant enigma to him.

It was nearly halfway through the semester—the coldest day of the class yet— when he finally broke down, unable to watch you struggle anymore. You had the lowest grade in his class, something that not only was unusual for you, but that shocked him. How anyone was able to drop below a B in his class he would never understand, but you? Well, it was obvious you needed help.

Gwilym dismissed class five minutes early which was hardly an uncommon occurrence. It was the latest class he taught, starting at four o’clock, and by the time the class was even halfway over, everyone in the room was ready to leave. As he sat on the edge of his desk, he watched you pack up your things, allowing a few students to leave before he asked, “Y/N? Can I talk to you for a moment?”

Your heart dropped. You had never heard those words tinged with so much disappointment. They were usually lilted with excitement, maybe some pride, and you thought that years and years of being a teacher’s pet had to have ended at some point. High school honor roll meant absolutely nothing in the face of an entry-level journalism class. It almost made you snort.

As you approached the desk, throwing your bag over your shoulder, you smiled bashfully. “Hi,” you greeted simply, and if you weren’t mistaken, the corner of his lip twitched before his face was stoic again, raising an eyebrow.

“Are you aware that you’ve scored under sixty percent on the last five assignments?” He asked, twisting to grab a stack off his desk, and you felt embarrassment wash over you, nails digging into the strap of your bag.

“Yeah, Doctor, I am...acutely aware of that fact,” you sighed, rubbing the heel of your hand over your forehead.

The two of you stared at one another in silence. He wondered whether you were talking back, but the dark exhaustion in your eyes was a look he had seen many times throughout his years of teaching. You were on the verge of giving up. “I’ve never met someone who was bad at journalism before,” he marveled, flipping through your papers. “Do you know how hard it is to be bad at journalism?”

“We’re a special breed,” you huffed, shifting on your feet. Minutely, he smiled. You certainly were. 

“Y/N, I don’t understand,” he said. “You seem very bright, you’re obviously very dedicated. You’re the only one in class listening to me, how can you be doing so poorly?”

You shifted on your feet anxiously. The feeling in the pit of your stomach wasn’t something you had ever felt before and you were entirely unimpressed with it, anxiety and nausea and humiliation swirling until you could have keeled over at the feeling, and you avoided his eyes as you said. “I don’t—I don’t know. If I knew what I could be doing differently, trust me when I say that I would be doing it.”

Gwilym stared back at you, eyes narrowed. He knew he made people uncomfortable sometimes, but he had never seen someone almost look sick so early on in a conversation, and the smallest bit of worry planted itself in the pit of his stomach. “Are you okay?”

It’s then that you correctly identify the feeling as panic, your feet tapping on the thin carpet and your palms running down your denim-clad thighs nervously. “I—uh, I’ve never gotten a bad grade before, I swear, and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong and I’m really sorry.”

“Would you like to sit down?”

He’d talked many students down from a panic attack, but never one who refused to admit that was what was happening. You sunk into his desk chair while he fished your water bottle from your bag and held it out to you. “Oh, no, thank you,” you said, almost breathlessly. Your shaky hands pressed into your thighs to keep them still and he rolled his eyes, waiting expectantly for you to take it from his hands.

After a moment, you relented, grabbing it from him and popping the lid off. Despite your insistence, the water washed away a bit of your anxiety, and you took a deep breath, a desperate attempt to soothe yourself as Gwilym watched you, arms folded over his chest as he stood aside patiently. Your heart still felt like it was beating wildly and you still felt panic heavy in your gut, but your breathing was beginning to slow, so you sighed softly, smiling bashfully at him. “Do you have panic attacks often?” He asked easily, and you raised your brows before they furrowed in confusion.

“What? No, why?”

Gwilym stared at you incredulously, wracking his brain for a response. “Because you almost just had one.”

You shook your head, waving him off. “No, I didn’t. Sometimes I just get freaked out.”

“Like that?” He pushed.

“No, not like that,” you admitted. “Never like that.”

Gwilym breathed out heavily, leaning against his desk again, and the embarrassment returned full force. You had never spoken a word to your professor and at the first sign of his disappointment, you almost spiraled? You could have laughed at yourself. You pushed your hair from your forehead and huffed.

“Your grade is really that important to you?” He asked in a sigh. You nodded, rolling your water bottle between your hands as he frowned, probably searching for some way to get you out of your office. “I’m willing to work with you on your assignments if this grade is important to you.”

You looked up from your fidgeting fingers, your eyes wide in surprise, and he stopped, gave himself a moment to adore you—but then he was back to business, shaking his thoughts from his head. Shaking out the image of that precious, moonstruck look you were giving him. “Really?” You whispered, and he could scream at how innocent you looked, but he cleared his throat.

He had begun watching you in the beginning of the year, always completely surprised by how dedicated to a class you were likely taking to fulfill a general credit, but as the weeks passed, he began watching you to figure you out. You were smart, that much was obvious as he read your essay questions, but when it came to the material, you were a mess, mixing up terms and crossing your wires and forgetting simple details. 

And then things shifted. He began watching you, predicting your movements before you could. The way you tapped your pencil against your thigh, quietly so as to not annoy anyone, and how you chewed on your thumbnail for no more than five seconds at a time, as though it was a habit you were attempting to break, and how your brow furrowed when he dumped too much information at once, your lip between your teeth as you tried to scribble it all down. The honest truth was that Gwilym Lee enjoyed watching you a great deal; he had been doing so for almost a month and a half and he dreaded the day he no longer had something interesting to look at in class. He had developed a sense of adoration for you, the kind you only felt when you were privy to someone’s idiosyncrasies and he had watched you so intently that he had begun to believe he had picked up on quite a few of them.

Clearing his throat, he shrugged. “You work hard, Y/N. I’d hate to watch you fail an intro to journalism class.”

“That would just be embarrassing,” you breathed.

“Absolutely humiliating,” he agreed, and for the first time, he allowed his facade to crack and he smiled at you. “You can drop by my office hours and we’ll talk about revising older assignments for credit. And please, don’t be afraid to ask me questions. It is quite literally what I’m here for.”

You grinned, grasping your water bottle tightly and standing up so quickly that it made you dizzy. “Thank you, Doctor Lee. I couldn’t thank you enough.”

“Pass my class and we’ll call it even,” he joked, and the sight of him softening a bit made your heart soar. You nodded, your cheeks beginning to hurt from how hard you smiled, relief rushing through your system. There was a silent moment before he rubbed the back of his neck, the first sign of nervousness you had ever seen from the doctor, and you bit your lip. “Well, I really should go.” _Feed my dog_. He almost sighed at the thought, returning home by himself, but you nodded, backing away from his desk.

“Thank you again, Doctor Lee. Really.”

“I’ll see you at office hours,” he waved you off, and you spun around, slipping from the lecture hall. As the door closed behind you, he breathed out sharply. He was a mess. He was beyond a mess at this point; Gwilym had never developed feelings for a student. But the tiny crush he had harbored hadn’t been mitigated by your conversation. In fact, it had only been spurred on.

As he grabbed his keys from his desk drawer, Gwil silently chastised himself. He had only opened the door to spend more time with you, and god knew that was only going to make whatever silly crush he had infinitely worse. He huffed as he locked the lecture hall behind him, the light flooding in from the windows making the long hallway appear dim and gray, and he could hear the rain begin to hit the glass panes. Silently, he worried that you had missed the bus from the lecture hall.

He tried to expel the thought from his brain, but the rain pouring down made it hard to think of anything but you, miserable you, walking through the downfall, and the thought made him nervous. You were smart, he had to remind himself. Even if you missed the bus, you would have called someone.

But he decided to drive the long way home for no other reason than to make sure, assuring himself that even if you _had_ made the decision to walk home, it was your own poor decision and none of his business. He only made it half a mile from the parking lot when he saw a figure walking down the sidewalk and he groaned quietly. There was no way for him to know for sure that it was you, but the person wore a gray sweater identical to the one that he’d been looking at not fifteen minutes ago, and he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that it was you.

He also knew he shouldn’t. “It’s not your responsibility, Gwilym,” he whispered to himself. “ _She’s_ not your responsibility.” Even so, almost by an outside force, he maneuvered his car to the curb, beside you. The rain was so heavy that you hardly heard him pull up, and he couldn’t see the way your muscles tightened at the car behind you. “Y/N!” He called loudly. You glanced over your shoulder nervously, and he watched you sigh a bit, hopefully with relief as you smiled sheepishly.

“Hi, Doctor Lee,” you said simply, and he could have laughed at how trivial it all seemed, how you were acting like nothing was wrong when he could see your hands shaking. “What’s up?”

Gwilym rolled his eyes, unlocking his doors. “Get in the car.”

You chewed on your lip nervously, readjusting the strap of your bag. You hadn’t read the student handbook, but you were sure there was some sort of rule against that, so you shook your head. “Can’t you get in trouble for that?”

His brow furrowed. Why were you thinking about him when you were shaking so much that he could see it even through the haze of the rain? He really _could_ get in trouble for it, but he didn’t care about that. He cared that you were soaked to the bone, so instead of answering, he said, “You’re going to catch your death. Get in here.”

“Doctor Lee—”

“Y/N, get in the car or I’ll fail you.”

It was a low blow, a last-ditch attempt, but you shut your mouth, and after a quick second, you opened the car door and slid into the passenger seat. You breathed out in relief as he reached forward, turning up the heat, and even though you were soaked, you reveled in the heat, both from the vents and the seat. “Oh,” you sighed quietly. “That’s nice.”

“Where are you headed?” He asked, and it was the softest you had ever heard his voice, so unlike the minatory tone he often took in class.

For a moment, you faltered, but he didn’t look away so, gently, you replied, “Monroe hall.”

The silence was thick, though not necessarily uncomfortable, as you picked at the seam of your jeans; Gwilym glanced over at you and felt his heart beat just a touch faster. The feeling almost made him shake in his seat. He had never had feelings for a student before. In fact, he rarely even thought of students once he left his office at the end of the day; it was unusual any of them even talked to him long enough for them to stick in his mind. 

But you? You were different. 

Not only had Gwil thought about you as he locked up his classroom, but he had taken a different route home—a route toward the dorms. Just to make sure you had made your way home and out of the cold. If it were anyone else, he would have driven by without a second thought. But he hadn’t. Because it was you.

He could practically hear your teeth chattering as he drove and he looked over at you once again. You shot him a polite, quick smile, and looked back down at your jeans. Clearing his throat, he said, “So...Monroe? That place is nice, right?”

You snorted, smiling at his attempt to break the silence. Hiding his own smile, he raised a brow, his eyes still on the road. “Yeah, it’s not so bad,” you replied. “I lived in Jackson last year and that place sucked ass, so Monroe is definitely a step up.”

Gwilym couldn’t help himself as a laugh bubbled in his chest. Surprised, you glanced up at him, unable to hide your own soft laugh. “Jackson,” he said under his breath, like an afterthought, and you watched him almost affectionately, your eyes pinched slightly as you smiled.

You glanced out the window, hiding your smile from him. “Jackson,” you sighed with a shake of your head.

The car rolled to a smooth stop in front of your dorm and you grabbed your bag from the floor, turning to him quickly to thank him. He put up a hand to stop you before you could even start. “Office hours.”

A smile quirked at your lips and you nodded only once. “See you then,” you agreed. You opened your door, the heavy rain immediately freezing you to the bone as you thanked him quickly and closed it behind you, making your way to the door of your hall. Unzipping your bag, you rifled around the pocket in search of your keycard, your brow furrowing in confusion. You explicitly remembered dropping it in before you left for your classes, so why couldn’t you find it now? You groaned quietly, throwing your head back for a moment before you zipped your backpack and threw it over your shoulder. Hands cupped over your eyes, you looked through the window in the door only to see a barren hall.

Behind you, a honk sounded and you felt that embarrassment turn in your stomach again. You glanced over your shoulder, sighing softly as Gwilym waved you over. With one last glance through the window, you turned on your heel and ran back through the rain, opening the passenger door and slipping inside, closing the door behind you to keep out the water.

“So...I don’t have my keycard,” you said simply. “But I can wait for someone to come in, or to come out. I’ll just sit under the canopy.”

“Y/N, it’s practically raining sideways,” Gwilym groaned. “Can you call your roommate?”

Minutely, you shook your head. “It’s just me.”

He thought for a moment, trying to find a plan of action, before he sighed. You had fought him hard on even getting in his car, which was how he knew his next suggestion wouldn’t go over well. There was no roommate and it was well past five o’clock. He knew on-campus facilities began to close early on Fridays, which meant the housing office was likely closed, leaving him with what he felt was the only option. “Well, I guess you’re coming with me, then.”

Panicked, you whipped your head toward him. “What? No, I can’t do that. You _definitely_ can’t do that.” Gwilym rolled his eyes, glancing over at you. 

“What else are you going to do, Y/N?”

“I can wait!” You exclaimed, shifting in your seat to look at him. 

He gave you a knowing look. “It’s a Friday night. Anyone that’s gone isn’t coming back for hours, and with this rain, anyone inside is likely staying there all night. I’m not going to let you freeze on the steps of your dorm.”

You knew he was right, but you hated to admit it, so you huffed and sunk lower in your seat. Not pouting, but reluctant. “I don’t…” you trailed off, wringing your hands. “I can’t let you do that.”

Turning in his seat, he gave you a sharp look. “You aren’t sitting in the rain all night, so either you come with me or I drop you off at a hotel.”

Somehow, he seemed to know that you certainly couldn’t afford that, so you rubbed your eyes with the heels of your hands. You didn’t really have much of a choice, it seemed, and you felt frustration bubbling in your chest at yourself. Where had you lost your keycard, and how could you have been so fucking _stupid_? 

Silently, you buckled your seatbelt again and Gwilym returned to his previous position, facing the road as he shifted out of park. The ride to his place was considerably more awkward, though only for you. Gwilym leaned against the center console contentedly, fingers tapping out the rhythm of the Peter Frampton song spilling out of the speakers lowly. You didn’t comment on the fact that he drove the opposite way of your dorms, and you didn’t let your mind wander over why he was driving in that direction in the first place.

You spent almost the whole fifteen minute drive in the quiet, not even a perfunctory attempt at conversation. As your heart raced, you began to wonder if this was a complete mistake. Of course, you knew on some level that you should have bit the bullet and used a credit card for a hotel room and dealt with the ridiculously high interest later, but you had stupidly agreed to go with Gwilym, and only now were you realizing that you hardly knew him at all. He never offered any details of his personal life and you had never spoken a word to him before today, and now he was driving you...somewhere. He had never said explicitly that he was taking you to his home, and just as you began to panic, he turned down a residential street, glancing over at you.

“Are you alright? You’re looking a little pale,” he noted, turning back to face the road. 

His words did nothing to soothe you but the little cottage he parked in front of made you feel slightly better. No psychopath had pansies planted along his walkway. You nodded, gripping the strap of your bag as he motioned you out of the car. The rain was still pounding as the two of you ran up the sidewalk, his keys jangling as he struggled to get it in the door through the dark haze of the rain.

The front door swung open and he hurried inside, brushing a hand over his hair to keep it off his forehead and you followed, allowing him to close the door behind you. He kicked off his soaking shoes and you did the same, standing awkwardly in his foyer as he stepped further into the living room with a heavy sigh. He threw a glance over his shoulder and bit back a smile at the sight of you shifting on your feet, too nervous to follow him further into the house.

“C’mon,” he motioned, already walking down the hall. You could hear excited barking somewhere in the cozy home but he was walking too fast for you to scope out where it was coming from. At the end of the hall, across from an open door that revealed an unmade bed, he opened a door and gently guided you inside. “Uh...I’ll grab you some dry clothes and we can toss those in the dryer.”

“Okay,” you replied smally, setting your backpack gently beside the door. He disappeared across the hall and after a moment, you remembered the messy duvet strewn across the bed and smiled. He didn’t strike you as the type to opt out of making his bed. Drawers and closet doors knocked in his room for a minute before he returned, holding out a worn sweatshirt and a pair of flannel pajama pants. 

For a moment, the two of you stood, just looking at one another, and he looked like something was right on the tip of his tongue when he startled. “Right then! I’ll let you change. You can just bring those out when you’re done and we can order something for dinner.”

He closed the door behind him and you breathed out sharply, still taken aback at the sudden turn of events. Shedding your wet clothes, you listened to him close his bedroom door behind him, likely to change his own clothes. You groaned uncomfortably as you peeled your jeans from your frame, feeling your underwear sticking to your wet skin. Ponderously, you stared at the full-length mirror leaning gently across from the window, wondering if it was too dangerous a boundary to cross to wear your professors clothes without your underwear. The fabric sticking to your hips was enough to make the decision for you, so you pushed them down and threw them atop your jeans, pulling on the pants and rolling up the bottoms to keep yourself from tripping.

You changed your shirt quickly, careful to hide your undergarments between your sweater and your jeans as you opened your door and peeked into the hallway. Gwilym’s bedroom door was open, and somewhere around the corner, you heard a door creak open, the excited barking growing louder as you listened to Gwilym chuckle, talking lowly to the dog. Following the sound, you heard nails clicking on the tile and you prepared yourself, grinning as a large dog bounded around the corner to greet you.

Dropping to your knees, you held out your hand to let it sniff you excitedly, it’s whole body shaking from how hard his tail was wagging. “Monty,” Gwilym sighed, turning the corner to see the two of you getting acquainted.

“Monty?” You asked, reaching forward to scratch behind the dog's ear. “Well, that’s fitting, isn’t it?” You smiled, running a hand down his back before you stood up.

Gwilym finally cracked a smile, waving at you to follow him as he turned the corner again. You followed dutifully, your toes curling against the cold tile as you followed him through the kitchen and into the tiny laundry room. You took a moment to admire how comfortable he looked in his sweatpants, a threadbare t-shirt covering his broad shoulders as he took your clothes from you, tossing them in the dryer with his own. “So,” he sighed, pressing buttons on the washer. “I’m assuming the housing office is closed until Monday.”

Because you could think of nothing else to say, you said, “I’m sorry.”

He chuckled as the dryer shook to life. “It’s okay,” he assured, a light hand between your shoulder blades guiding you out of the laundry room. The gentle touch nearly made a shiver run down your spine, surprised by how affected you seemed to be by his touch. “Can you call anyone that lives in your hall?”

You chewed on your lip in thought but you came up short, fingers toying with the hem of his alumni sweatshirt as you glanced at him and shook your head. “I only know Peter, but he’s visiting his girlfriend for the weekend.” Gwilym nodded, pursing his lips in thought and guilt tugged at your chest. “I really could get a hotel room; I think I left my credit card in my wallet, so—”

“No,” he shook his head. “Don’t. This is fine, right? Surely I can’t be so insufferable that you can’t spend two days here. And Monty will act as a buffer.” Both of you know that wasn’t the main concern in the situation but you still allowed yourself a small giggle, something that made a smile begin to pull his lips up. “Seriously, don’t worry, okay? This doesn’t have to be...you know, an issue. We’re adults.”

You pushed your shoulders back to stand up a bit straighter and he smiled at the sight. “Okay.”

“Okay,” he nodded. “Now, for dinner.”

He seemed to have retreated back into his shell once the pizza had arrived at the apartment, which left the two of you to dance awkwardly around the kitchen, searching for a plan of action. You had both dished up, staring at one another across the counter. What was the next step? You were already here, wearing his clothes and sleeping in his guest room, so was it too uncomfortable for you to eat dinner at the same table?

Silently, you sat down. Monty sat at your feet, cold nose bumping against your toes, and you smiled down at him. Gwilym sighed softly, sitting across from you. Usually, Monty sat beside him, begging for scraps, but he didn’t even bother looking in Gwilym’s direction. The doctor picked up a slice of pizza, looking up at you from under his lashes surreptitiously, eyes widening in shock as you cried out in distaste. 

“Oh, there’s no way,” you gasped at him, shaking your head. He looked back at you in silence, blue eyes blown wide in confusion. “You don’t eat your pizza crust-first.”

“I do,” he shot back, raising his brow in contest. 

“That should be illegal,” you returned.

“The crust is the worst part; I’m getting rid of it,” he defended.

Slinking in your chair, you rubbed your eyes with the heels of your hands. “Wrong. So, so completely wrong.”

Gwilym laughed, still confused, and took an exaggerated bite from his crust, eyes boring into yours. You couldn’t hold your own giggle if you tried, rolling your eyes as you bit into your pizza, something familiar bubbling in your chest.

_Oh, no._

You had done many things. Many stupid, ridiculous things that you had regretted almost immediately, but you knew without a doubt that developing a crush on your professor would land higher on your list than getting too drunk the night before your music final and sleeping through your alarm.

Gwilym didn’t seem to notice your sudden apprehension, because he cleared his throat and asked, “So, where did they fail to nurture your journalistic education?”

Snorting at his phrasing, you shook your head and allowed your feet to swing a bit. As you rested your cheek in hand and talked about your schooling before you had found yourself at the university, time slipped away. Gwilym rested his chin in his own hand, rubbing his beard ponderously every few minutes, brows pinched in concentration. Gwilym Lee was the kind of person who listened, _truly_ listened, to what someone had to say. It didn’t matter that your dinner had begun to grow cold, or that the dryer beeped to alert you that the clothes were dry, or that Monty had gotten so bored that he had retreated from the room. No, he looked you right in the eyes and listened, asking questions and laughing—bright and loud and mirthful, your heart raced every time you coaxed it from him. 

When your painted toes brushed over his socked feet under the table accidentally, neither of you said anything. He smiled.

——————————

When you woke up, you hardly noticed anything different for a moment. The silence of the house was not unlike your dorm room, and the white walls could pass for the brick in your room through your blurry eyes, but the mattress was softer, duvet a little fluffier, and there was a distinct musk—cologne, something earthy with a healthy dose of sandalwood—and you knew you were not where you should have been. Despite it being a guest room, every square inch of the space smelled of nothing but Gwilym and it made you burrow into the sheets subconsciously, sighing softly in content. 

After only one night, you were unsure if you would be able to return back to the firm mattress in your cold dorm room. Gwilym—Gwil, he insisted—kept his house warm, something you had no control over in your place of residence, and you were basking in the feeling, a rare moment of luxury in an otherwise lackluster life. 

A glance at your phone showed that it was a bit later than usual, which was to be expected. You and Gwil had spent a few hours at the table; once you had talked in detail about your life, you felt inclined to pry a bit, which he allowed. It was a window into the doctor's life that you were sure not many got, especially students, which made you doubly appreciative. Once you had sunk into bed, a few hours after midnight, you had fallen asleep almost immediately. 

The house was quiet; you weren’t sure how mornings usually went around here, but you couldn’t even hear Monty, which made you furrow your brows in confusion. You sat up, yawning quietly as you looked over the almost sparse room, your clothes folded neatly on the corner of the dresser. Smiling, you rolled out of bed tiredly. As you dressed lazily, kicking off the pajama pants you had slept in, you could hear the hinges of the front door squeak, Monty’s excited barking echoing through the house. Gwil muttered to the dog (“Yes, Monty, I know,” you were able to make out. It was enough to make you grin) and as you pulled on your underwear, you could hear the doctor sighing softly as the familiar clicking of Monty’s nails against hardwood floors became louder. Your jeans were almost buttoned when you heard him sniffing at your door and you chuckled.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” you assured, rolling the sleeves of Gwilym’s sweatshirt. One glance in the mirror to assure you were presentable and you opened the door, Monty perched on his front paws, chin to the ground and tail wagging excitedly. “You are looking absolutely dashing this morning,” you greeted, squatting beside him and grinning as he bounced up, the weight of him nearly knocking you over as he placed his paws on your knees, hardly needing to stretch to sniff you. 

“Monty, no!” Gwilym exclaimed from down the hall, but the dog paid him no mind, taking his time assessing where you had been while he’d been gone. Gwil sighed. “He’s very well trained, I assure you. Personal space is the only command he doesn’t understand,” he said pointedly, and from the doorway you could see the look he was giving Monty, as though he would understand the nuanced disappointment of his owner’s expression. Monty ignored him, his nose bumping yours once more before he decided he was done, returning to the floor. You stood, stretching your arms over your head with another yawn as Gwilym walked further down the hall. His bedroom door was closed—you smiled at the thought of his unmade bed. “Good morning,” he greeted softly.

Though you had spent the whole night talking, you suddenly felt shy around him again, especially with the way he took you in. You had hardly imagined how he would have felt about you wearing his sweatshirt still when your sweater was back in your posession.

Gwilym didn’t mind. He tried not to look too hungry as he drank you in, his mind working overtime when you answered softly, “Morning.”

He squared his shoulders, pursing his lips. “We brought back coffee, if you want one. Bagels, too.”

You blinked. He continued to surprise you. Finally, you nodded. “Yeah, that sounds great. Thank you.” 

As he turned away from you to walk down the hall, he clenched his eyes closed briefly, trying to force his stomach to stop flipping. The way you looked in his clothes last night was enough to leave him sleepless for the majority of the night, but somehow this was so much worse. You looked almost natural in his sweatshirt, tucked behind the button of your jeans, your hair slightly messy from sleep. Monty had almost completely abandoned Gwilym in favor of you which left him confused and gave him pause. 

He wanted to pretend it was all normal; he wanted to pretend that Monty loved you because you were meant to be here, and that you wore his sweatshirt because it felt right to you, and that you were here with him because you were his. However, Gwilym knew how dangerous it would be to dip his toes into that fantasy. He had never been good at separating his wants from reality and if he leaned too far into the daydream, it would become too tangible. Right now, the crush he had been nurturing was coasting on the line between easy to dismiss and so strong that it made him sick, and to allow himself to think too hard about it would bring it on too strong.

Though he knew it was much too late when he picked up the iced coffee from the counter, turning around to hand it to you. He watched your face light up, a grin growing as you glanced up from it. “I get an almond milk latte, usually, so I got the same for you,” he explained softly.

You noticed that his was hot and you smiled. He would never admit that he knew you liked your coffee iced from the simple fact that you had almost never shown up to class with hot coffee. He didn’t need to admit it—it seemed as though there was a silent sense of understanding between the two of you. “That’s perfect. Thank you,” you looked up at him, shifting on your feet as you took a tentative sip.

Part of him wondered if you were doing it on purpose, the way you looked up at him through your lashes as you sipped your coffee through the straw, holding it between your teeth as you grinned. But no, he finally decided, you were a good girl, and good girls didn’t try to seduce their professors. There was a moment of extended eye contact before he watched your cheeks flush. You looked away, gazing down at Monty with a shy smile and Gwilym‘s lips quirked, turning away from you. “Bagel?”

You hummed in agreement, not trusting your own voice as you took another sip of your drink. The fluttering in your stomach was undeniable, a heavy burning licking up your insides, a sick sense of excitement churning within you. As Gwil removed the bagels from the paper bag, you sat at the table silently, allowing yourself to watch him. You had never seen him in jeans before, but you totally adored the sight of him, along with a heavy sweater pushed up his forearms and wildly patterned socks covering his feet. It was as though he was on a mission to endear himself to you, the coffee and the socks and the way he talked to Monty, and you felt almost dizzy with fondness for him.

Gwilym sensed something in you, something that you mirrored from him. You were so bright that he hardly would have noticed it if you hadn’t been so keen to partake in his company, but the way you lit up when you were together, something he had never seen from you in class, only confirmed his suspicions. You were lonely. He saw it when he had asked about a potential roommate, and how you talked wistfully about your family, whom you had left to pursue your education, leaving you alone in an unfamiliar setting, far from familiarity. It was a feeling Gwilym had grown well-acquainted with and seeing it in you only made him want to foster his bond with you.

He set a plated bagel before you, smiling gently down at you before he sat across from you. You sat up a little straighter and as you ripped your bagel into smaller pieces, you looked up at him. “So, what did you guys do this morning?”

Gwilym took a sip of his coffee, turning his head to look at Monty, who lazed in the sun near the french doors to the backyard. “We just went for a quick walk; I thought having a guest was a better excuse than any to go out for breakfast.”

You popped a piece of your bagel into your mouth. “Thank you again,” you said gently. He smiled, shaking his head gently.

The interaction must have reminded him of something because he suddenly sat up a bit straighter in his seat. “Hey, I brought your assignments home. We should work on those today.” Unintentionally, your face twisted in distaste because he chuckled quietly. “C’mon. The more we get done today, the less time you have to spend at office hours.”

You certainly didn’t have any other plans today aside from locking yourself in the guest room and scrolling through your phone until it was time to go to sleep, so you sighed softly. “I guess.”

Gently, he kicked your ankle under the table. “You’ll thank me later.”

You didn’t plan on it, but sitting at the kitchen table with him was a worthwhile endeavor, the pile of redone assignments steadily growing, the two of you only speaking to ask a question or exchange an answer. It wasn’t the worst way to spend your morning. This was hardly how you had imagined your weekend going, sitting at your professor’s kitchen table doing homework; not that you had anything exciting planned originally. In fact, you had planned on spending your weekend like you spent most: alone in your dorm room. Maybe a quick call to your parents, but otherwise lonely. It was certainly a welcome distraction to be with _anyone_ , even if it was your professor. Especially if that professor was Doctor Lee.

It would be a lie to say that he was anything less than entranced by the way you chewed on your straw, twirling your pen between your fingers with furrowed brows. Across from you, Gwilym tried to focus on grading some other assignments, chewing on his lip.

You groaned, frustrated, and he raised a brow at you. “I don’t understand what current events have to do with mass communication.”

He laughed loudly, leaning forward on his elbows. “Absolutely everything, Y/N. Especially now.”

“Yeah, but why do I _care_?” You asked pointedly, sighing softly as he stared back at you menacingly. “It’s a Saturday. My brain is on vacation.”

“There’s no such thing as brains on vacation in this house,” he huffed. 

Rolling your eyes, you pushed your paper toward him, pointing at a particularly obnoxious question. “Tell me what the Kardashians have to do with mass communication.”

Gwilym blinked back at you, surprised by your lowered inhibition, how easily you ignored his glares. “It’s not the Kardashians, it's more about why we care about them.”

“We do?”

“Well, not us,” he chuckled, knuckles brushing yours as he reached out for your paper. “But our society.” Vibrant blue eyes scanned over your answer and he adjusted his glasses with the back of one of his hands while he circled a question. Monty nudged your foot with his nose and you smiled as he leaned into your leg, the breath of his sigh breezing over your ankles. A situation that was likely meant to feel so awkward had turned into one of your better days this semester.

It wasn’t that you were lonely, per se. You had friends—from high school, or classes past, or work, but they had gone to different schools or moved out of town or lost touch, so it was rare that you had much social interaction besides Peter, who you were sure was only hanging around you because his girlfriend went to a different university and he had put no effort into making any friends, save for his neighbor: you. You weren’t lonely. You had people. In theory. No one you saw in person. Waking in a bright house after a night of long conversation and eating breakfast with someone, sitting at the table with someone who could hold a conversation about something other than sports or business. It was nice.

Gwilym cleared his throat, looking up at you with a smile playing on his lips. “This is much better, Y/N, even with your indignance about the Kardashians.”

You grinned, taking the page pack from him and marvelling at the score he had written at the top, just beside your name before you flipped it back around to show him excitedly. Gwilym was fully aware of the score he had just given, but he liked how thrilled you were, so he smiled back at you. “Gwil!”

His heart soared at the nickname but it hardly lasted a second. Shrugging, he leaned back in his seat. “You earned it.”

There was a thick moment of silence, extended eye contact, just like when he had handed you your drink. It made you nervous. It made you buzz in the scariest and most exciting way possible, a wash of heat flowing over your body. Smiling softly, you raised a brow. “I think I’m done.”

“I believe you are,” he agreed, pushing his chair back a bit. “It’s time for a well-deserved break.”

You stood up, pushed your flyaways from your face, and straightened your—his—sweatshirt and the sight made Gwilym’s stomach churn, a sudden overtaking of fear. He wasn’t sure he was going to make it through this weekend. Not that he had another choice, but you were already making it exceedingly hard on him and it was hardly halfway over. 

Gwilym made lunch and you sat on the tiled floor to scratch behind Monty’s ears. The big dog leaned against your chest, between your legs, and rested his chin on your shoulder, easily allowing you to wrap an arm around his body and scratch between his ears with your free hand. Gwil had chastised Monty for his lack of understanding when it came to personal space but the comforting weight against you made you feel nothing short of perfectly content, something your professor seemed to sense. 

He didn’t comment on it, only glancing over at you two every few moments. The silence allowed you to close your eyes, holding the dog close as you listened to Gwil curse quietly under his breath. For the first time, it was you indulging in the fantasy. The morning had only reminded you how completely captivating your professor was. You were keen on the sly smiles and lingering contact, though you would never tell him that. You just liked to imagine that, maybe, he was thinking what you were thinking. How _natural_ this all felt, how a completely out-of-the-ordinary situation felt anything but. 

“Would you like your lunch on the floor or the couch?” He asked playfully, looking down at you and Monty with a sly smile.

You raised a brow. “Oh, a change in venue?” 

As though his heart wasn’t racing, he shrugged casually. “We’ve spent long enough at the table, don’t you think?”

With a shy smile, you nodded. “Yeah, I think so.” 

You gave Monty one last thorough scratch before you stood, wiping your hands off on your jeans before you rinsed them in the sink. Gwil plated the wraps, not bothering to even hand you your plate before he was traipsing off to the living room and you bit your lip, taking your solitary moment to try and reign in your ever-evolving feelings for your professor. It seemed, after the whirlwind of the awkward situation had settled, that your feelings had as well. You were stuck on pure, absolute adoration, especially when you heard the television hum to life. 

Finally, you followed him to the living room. Monty had settled comfortably in the middle of the couch, beside Gwilym, and you allowed yourself to breath out softly. A part—a rather large part—of you wanted to sit by his side, but you knew that was too close to the line you were desperately trying not to cross, so you found yourself thanking Monty silently as you sat on the other side of him. “Thank you,” you said, settling yourself on the soft cushions. “For lunch, and for helping me with my work. And for...y’know, basically everything.” You laughed, tugging at the hem of your sweatshirt nervously. 

His heart swelled fondly, but he shook his head, ignoring your thanks. “I’m in the middle of Community, but if you’d rather something else, we can find something.”

Grinning, you turned to look at him. “No, no. That’s perfect,” you chuckled, reaching to swipe your plate from the coffee table, matching him by holding it in your lap.

He crossed his ankles atop the coffee table but you crossed your legs beneath you, eating your lunch quietly as you watched the TV. Gwilym tried to pay attention, but he couldn’t keep his chest from swelling every time you giggled, or every time you glanced over at him to watch his reactions. He didn’t turn to you, didn’t even look at you, because he knew if he did he’d be gone completely, unable to look back to the television, and that was a situation he would be unable to write off, so he kept to himself.

He had meant to get back to grading after an episode or two, but he would soak up every second of being settled on the couch with you, his arm thrown across the back of it. His fingertips were close enough to slip into your hair if he so wished, and they twitched slightly, digging into the soft cushions to keep them away from you. You sighed lightly, eyes fluttering closed as you leaned back into the cushions. He smiled, glancing over at you to watch the way you shifted in your seat, Monty’s head resting in your lap. You didn’t look tired; instead, you looked relaxed, as though you were taking in the moment. Gwil closed his eyes, too.

***

“You’re going to jail!”

“You couldn’t send me to jail if you _tried_.”

You threw your head back in a loud laugh, reaching forward to move Gwilym’s game piece on your own. His laughter was infectious and it twisted your heart, keeping your spirit light as you picked up the dice from the board. When he had suggested a round of Monopoly, you laughed. You hadn’t played in years, but it didn’t take much to get you to agree. The sun was low in the sky, hugging the horizon outside the windows, light waning. The lights inside had been flipped on not ten minutes before, leaving him in perfect view. He had long shed his heavy sweater, leaving him in a plain white t-shirt and you could have salivated at the sight. This was something you would replay in your mind for months to come, the two of you sitting on the plush rug of his living room, leftover pizza set on the coffee table beside you and Gwilym’s continuous arguing. 

“Oh, that has to be illegal. You cannot move my piece,” he huffed indignantly.

“Hey, you weren’t going to jail willingly. I’m doing society a favor by bringing in a criminal,” you teased, socked toes nudging his knee gently.

He scoffed. “It’s corporate crime, Y/N, I’m no danger to anyone.”

“Except your own conscience,” you shook your head. Gwilym chortled, tossing forward two hundreds toward you.

“I’ll pay my way out,” he sighed.

“That’s wise,” you mused. “You aren’t great with the dice.”

“I’m going to throw you out on the porch,” he laughed loudly, pushing his glasses up on his nose, watching as you giggled, leaning back on your hands. It was a little too domestic to deny anymore, the lingering glances and shrewd smiles, but neither of you seemed to care. Rather, you each seemed to lean into it. You _liked_ it, and what was the harm in pretending for a day or two? As long as nothing happened, you couldn’t find anything wrong with it.

Though, that wasn’t entirely true. You knew the comedown from this weekend would hurt, but you weren’t worried about that yet. Returning to your life, you could do that. You had lived that life everyday for months, and you could do it again. You deserved a few days of make-believe.

“See, Gwil, while you’ve spent your life learning about journalism, I’ve spent my life learning the intricate art of winning Monopoly,” you grinned up at him, pushing your game piece across the board.

Gwilym snorted, shaking his head at you. “I’ve been wasting my energy on the wrong things.”

“I wholeheartedly agree,” you joked, eyes sparkling as you glanced up at him, dropping the dice in his hand.

He had almost broken completely, left with only fifty-six dollars, so he sighed softly, looking up at you with the most pitiful look you had ever seen in your life. “I’m giving up.”

It was another wise decision. You were holding at least three thousand in your hands and you nodded. “I think that would be best.” The two of you shuffled bills together only for him to throw them haphazardly in the box, making you laugh incredulously. “You’re a mess.”

He rolled his eyes, sliding the lid on the box easily. “Not a mess. Just impatient.”

You smiled fondly, leaning back on your palms as he stood to put the box back into the closet. Brazenly, you watched him, allowing yourself a moment to just take him in. After tomorrow, it was likely you and Gwilym would return to your regular routines, loneliness and exhaustion, no longer weekend roommates, but a professor and a student who had gotten just a tad too close over a few days. You didn’t want it, of course. You couldn’t hide the fact that in such a short period of time, your gruff professor had weaseled his way into your heart. But he had a life to return to and so did you, if you could call it that, so you really had no choice but to enjoy what it was now and cherish the memories when it ended. The thought made your heart clench, but then Gwilym was suggesting a few more episodes of Community and you felt your spirits lift slightly.

***

Sunday followed almost without incident. The two of you ate breakfast in silence and worked on homework for a bit between then and lunch. He had washed your clothes one last time while you showered and the two of you had lazed on the couch most of the day following that, both of you ignoring the way the other laughed, how much you ached for one another. It wasn’t until you two began preparing for dinner that anything out of the ordinary happened.

“Alright, it’s nearly nine and we still haven’t eaten,” he sighed. “What are we ordering for dinner?” He asked, leaning back against the counter. Beside him, you frowned softly.

“I’d hate for you to buy dinner again, Gwil. I can make something,” you proffered, gazing up at him gently.

He had to shake his head, not only at your insistence but at the way his heart pounded at the sight of you looking at him that way, the way your voice tilted and how his hands longed to reach out to you. “It’s not a financial burden to order out twice in three days,” he teased gently.

Angel eyes, your father had always called them. Rounded and wide and soft, they had gotten you your way many times throughout the years and you hated to admit that you had abused your power more than once, but you just knew they would work on Gwilym. So, with a doe-eyed, innocent expression, slightly tilted down in a pout, you frowned and said, “Gwil, please.”

It was the perfect storm, you considered, the way you stood a little too close to him and how you gazed up at him and the way that popular Elvis Bishop song started over the speakers. Fooled Around and Fell In Love was a little too on the nose for your taste, but Gwilym didn’t seem to mind, one of his hands cupping the back of your neck as he swooped down and pressed his lips to yours. For half a second you were surprised, less that he kissed you and more that he had worked up the courage to cross the boundary that both of you had skirted over, but it didn’t take a second for you to relax against him.

You sighed softly against his lips, a weekend of built up daydreams finally realized as you clutched at his thin t-shirt. He tasted of the peppermints he had been popping in his mouth all day and you hummed, melting into him, eyes fluttering closed. It hardly crossed either of your minds that this wasn’t right, that it wasn’t something you should be doing. Instead, all you could focus on was the way he dug his fingertips low into your hips, and the only thing Gwil was thinking was how sweet you sounded. His teeth nipped at your lower lip and you moaned gently, hands sliding up his chest to wrap your arms around his neck.

Gwil pulled away, still holding you close as he breathed out, “Y/N, I’m—”

You rolled your eyes, shaking your head and cutting him off. “Stop,” you uttered, gently guiding him back to you. When your lips met again, he breathed you in, his eyes closed and his chest tight. Like most things had this weekend, it felt perfect, as though you had spent every day since you could remember kissing him. You settled into one another so easily that he couldn’t help but sigh in contentment against you, the hand on your hip stroking a strip of exposed skin and you felt your heart soar.

Dinner was the last thing on your mind as he began to guide you through the house, not bothering to let you go as he kissed you desperately, his breathing growing heavy. He fumbled with the doorknob keeping you from his bedroom, too worked up to open it properly, and as he pushed you against the door with a frustrated groan, you reached back to open it yourself.

Your mind ran a mile a minute as he ripped his shirt off and without hesitation, you followed his lead, tossing his sweatshirt over your shoulder. It landed on his dresser, picture frames rattling under the weight of the heavy cotton, but he didn’t seem phased by your misstep at all, reaching forward to tug you closer by the waistband of your pants. The ferocity with which he kissed you made you dizzy and you gasped against him, fingertips grasping at his shoulders as he tugged your pajama pants down, hands smoothing over the newly-exposed skin as he licked into your mouth.

With shaky fingers, you played with the waist of his sweatpants, glancing up at him in confirmation. It was the first breath either of you had taken since the first kiss, the first moment to realize exactly what was happening. Gently, Gwilym squeezed your hips, raising a brow in question. “Are you okay?” 

It was more than a simple question, but you nodded. You weren’t thinking about consequences right now. You were thinking about Gwilym and how perfectly you fit against him, and how you had spent the whole weekend keeping yourself from thinking about exactly this. Now that the flood gates had opened, you had no intention of stopping. “ _Yes_ ,” you breathed, pressing up to kiss him again.

He spun you around, gently pushing you on the bed as he discarded his sweats. You felt as though your head was spinning, still unable to fully process the quick turn of events. Ten minutes before, the two of you were technically still firmly in platonic category, but now, Gwilym leaned over you, his bare skin pressed against yours making you shiver as he trailed kisses down your neck, across your collarbones, down your chest. Your fingers slipped into his hair, moaning softly as he scattered kisses over your bare breasts, arching your back into him.

It was obvious where he was taking the situation with the way he continued downwards, but a whine fell from your lips and you tugged on his hair. It wasn’t something you would deny any other day, especially not from him, but you were so desperate that you could almost feel tears stinging in your eyes. 

Gwil looked up at you, slightly confused, and you pulled him back up, sitting up to press your lips against his again. There were no words exchanged, only panting breaths and skimming fingers, but he seemed to understand, his hold on your waist tight as he laid you back against the pillows. He leaned over you for a moment, blue eyes dark as he took you in, and he finally sighed, leaning down to press gentle kisses to your jawline, fingers brushing over your clit. You drew in a breath and against your skin, he murmured, “God, you’re so beautiful.” It was an unexpected moment of tenderness and your nails scratched his scalp softly, heart racing near his ear. “Just have to get you ready, sweetheart.”

One finger slid inside of you and your eyes fluttered shut, reveling in the feeling of his hands, his lips, the vibration of his words. All you could hear, smell, and feel was Gwilym and it was beyond blissful, a pleased moan falling from your lips as he slipped a second finger in, still nibbling at the delicate skin of your neck. “Gwil,” you moaned shakily and the sound made him moan, too. How desperately he had longed to hear you say his name that way, long before this weekend, and it was everything he could ask for and more. “Please, I need you.”

He was growing impatient himself, excitement and anticipation coursing through his veins and the sight of you wasn’t helping, so he withdrew his fingers, taking his place over you. Your legs spread to accommodate his hips, your breath tremulous as it breezed over his lips. With one leg slung across his hips, you pulled him into you, feeding off of the way he moaned lowly at the contact. He slid in so easily that you couldn't help but whimper, throwing your arms around his shoulders. 

“Oh, my god,” you whined, your brows furrowing as he paused to give you a moment.

“Good girl,” he said breathlessly, nuzzling your nose with his own. “ _Such_ a good girl for me.” 

The praise made you cry out, clenching around him just to hear his responding hiss. You practically wrapped yourself around him, clinging onto him in any way you could, fingertips dimpling the tanned skin of his shoulders. “More,” you whisper against his lips. “Please.”

Though you had gotten to know him better over the few days you had spent together, you still expected him to carry on the persona he kept up in class: cold and detached and in charge. But one of his hands traced up your arm, coaxing it from around his shoulders and entwining your fingers, leaning down to kiss you as he began to thrust.

He gasped into your mouth and you did the same, drawing in a sharp breath, the air between you mingling as he pressed his forehead against yours, eyes boring into your own. The eye contact itself was enough to make your head spin but the way he angled his hips made you clench your eyes closed, squeezing his hand tightly. Biting his lip at the reaction, Gwilym carried on, watching in awe as your face twisted in pleasure, a thin whine of his name falling from your lips.

“Shit, you feel so good,” he huffed, and you opened your eyes to look at him, sucking in a breath at the way his eyes clenched closed, his muscles tightening under your palm.

“Let me—” you breathed out, nudging his shoulder back. “Can I get on top?”

He looked down at you in surprise, nodding once before rolling tentatively onto his back. On shaky knees, you straddled his hips, gripping his shoulders tightly. Large hands splayed over your hips and he stared up at you, the inside of his lip pulled between his teeth and you sighed gently, leaning down to press your chests together, catching him in a kiss that made your stomach flip and a content sigh fall from your chest.

Gwil’s hands soothed over your hips as you sat up and reached down to guide him back into you, another moan falling from you. From this angle, you could see the veins in Gwilym’s neck protruding and your fingers brushed over them, chewing on your lower lip to keep some semblance of control over yourself, but one particular swivel of your hips had both of you crying out, Gwil’s head thrown back into the pillow and your face screwed up in pleasure, your breathing heavy.

One of his hands fell from your hip to your clit and your hips jerked. The mewl you released surprised both of you but he persisted, rubbing deep circles over it as you continued to rock your hips against him. You knew you would fall apart quickly—after all, you couldn’t quite remember the last time you had slept with someone—but you were still taken aback by the warmth swirling in the pit of your stomach and washing down to your toes.

“Fuck, Gwil,” you whined, your head falling forward, eyes glued to his. His eyes, half-lidded and dark, pierced into you, enough to make you shiver, in strong contrast with the gentle brush of his hand on your hip. You ground your hips down, mouth falling open as you cried out, and he flexed his jaw, teeth clenching tight as he held you.

“I can feel you clenching around me. Are you close?” He asked, still working his fingers against his clit, and the saccharine tone of his voice made your hips stutter, lashes fluttering as you nodded, seemingly trapped in his gaze. “C’mon, sweet girl. Can I feel you come for me?”

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” you gasped, hips circling. Your orgasm crested over you until you were shuddering, your hands pressed to his chest, fingertips digging into his skin as you furiously rode out your orgasm. Gwil desperately wanted to close his eyes, to melt into the pleasure he felt as you tightened around him, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of you. He wouldn’t miss a second of the way you clutched at his shoulders, your eyes clenching closed as you cried his name. He almost made it all the way through, too, but you grabbed his wrist, pulling it from your hip and entwining your fingers as you leaned down to kiss him messily and the pure closeness of it all sent him over the edge, his hips rutting wildly against yours as you both drew out your orgasms.

Your muscles were still tight as you collapsed against his chest, both of you panting. After a moment, you buried your head in the crook of his neck, your breath fanning over his collarbones, and he sighed softly in content, his hand sneaking from between your bodies to rub over your back in large circles.

There was a thick silence and eventually, you figured he wasn’t going to say anything at all, just continuing to rub your back, but finally, he said, “So…that was nice.”

You snorted, nuzzling further in his neck as you shook softly with a laugh. “Don’t you dare try to engage in small talk with me right now.”

His chest rumbled with a laugh, soothing you softly. “Right, sorry.” And then, after only a second, “It was, though.”

“It was,” you agreed. He could feel your grin against his neck and he couldn’t fight his own, grateful you couldn’t see him. After a moment, you grit your teeth and lifted yourself off of him carefully, Gwil’s broken moan making your stomach flip. You hardly made it off of him, your body still half on top of his when he slung an arm around your waist, keeping you close. You looked up to him to see his dopey smile and tired eyes and you couldn’t help your own smile, pressing your hands against your chest and hiding the smile against the back of your palms. 

“You are…so adorable,” he shook his head.

Your nose scrunched and you pressed a gentle kiss to his chest, a silent thank you. His free hand rose up to grab one of yours from his chest, fingers playing with yours tentatively as you said, “You are a wicked man, Gwilym Lee.”

Curiously, he raised a brow, though his eyes stayed focused on your fingers dancing with his. “What’s finally brought you to this conclusion?”

With a teasing smile that he caught from the corner of his eye, you said, “Here’s what I think happened.” The beginning was enough to make a chuckle fall from him and he bid you to continue. “On Friday, you reached into my bag for my water bottle and you stole my keycard so that I would have no choice but to come home with you.”

“That’s what happened, is it?” He grinned, looking at you. 

You felt your heart swell with fondness and you grabbed his hand, smiling up at him. “It makes perfect sense, don’t you think? You almost lack deniability.”

He shook his head, leaning forward to press a kiss to your hairline. “Almost.” Silence took over you once again, though you watched him this time, the way his eyes glazed over in thought. “I’m sorry I got you into this mess,” he finally sighed, closing his eyes.

“What do you mean?” You frowned, kissing the back of his hand softly. 

“I mean that this is highly unethical,” he answered with a humorless chuckle. “I didn’t want to jeopardize your schooling. It’s why I didn’t—I don’t know. It’s why I didn’t reach out to you before.”

And suddenly, it all came crashing back to you. That you weren’t just Gwil and Y/N, you were Y/N and Doctor Lee. You were a student in your teacher’s bed, in his house, wearing his clothes and eating his food and playing with his dog, and within a second you were beginning to berate yourself. This had never been the plan; you had meant to daydream a little, sure, but you had never meant to act on it. You had never meant to compromise Gwilym’s job.

“What’s going on in that head of yours, hm?” He asked, his voice thicker with exhaustion. You still hadn’t eaten dinner but he hardly seemed to notice as his eyes began to droop with sleep.

“Nothing,” you lied softly, squeezing your hand. “Go to sleep.”

He didn’t take much convincing. Within a minute, his breathing was evening out, but with every passing second you were only growing more anxious, the fear in your body bottling up until you could hardly breathe. 

You faded in and out of sleep for a few hours, unable to fully relax when your brain was working overtime to keep you from being happy. By the time the sun began to peak over the horizon, you were thoroughly surprised that you hadn’t chewed a hole in your lip for as long as you had been thinking with it between your teeth. Truth be told, you could hardly care less about your schooling. You were practically finished, anyway. What would one semester of an illicit relationship do to you?

But it wasn’t you that you worried about. As Gwilym’s heart beat steadily beneath your ear, all you could think of was him. How his career was on the line. If anyone were to find out about this, he’d be fired from the university without a second thought and even just the idea of it made your heart ache. He loved to teach, and if this came to the light, he would never be able to do it in peace again. You frowned.

The clock read half past six and you’d finally drawn blood from your lip when you slipped from the covers into the chilled morning air. You tried to ignore Gwil’s discontented grumbling and the pinch between his brow as he reached out across the still-warm sheets, and the mental image of his face when he woke alone was nearly enough to get you to crawl back inside, but you gave him one last long glance, a tentative kiss on the corner of his mouth, and then you left the room, closing his door behind you. 

He folded your clothes nicely on the dresser of his guest room and as you redressed in them, you felt tears stinging in your eyes. You slung your backpack over your shoulder and tiptoed out of the room, careful to close the door behind you.

As you opened the front door, Monty watched you from the couch, a confused whine echoing through the empty room, and you finally allowed your tears to fall, closing the door behind you.

By the time you caught a bus and made it back to your building, it was past seven o’clock and you didn’t need to see yourself to know that your face was blotchy from your shameless crying on public transportation. Peter should have been awake by now, so when you dejectedly sat on the steps in front of your building, you fished your phone from your pocket and you dialed Peter’s number, clearing your throat as he picked up. “Are you home?”

“Yeah, why? Are you not?” He asked, sounding bright already.

You rubbed your forehead with the heel of your hand. “I’m out front. Do you think you could come let me in?”

You could hear his amused chuckle and the click of his door. “Why are you outside at 7 AM?”

The question made you take pause, attempting to think of a smart response before you finally sighed, “I'll tell you about it later.” You completely expected Peter to forget about this by the time lunch rolled around, so the promise didn’t hold much.

Behind you, the metallic clacking of the door being pushed open made you spin your head around. Peter stood, already dressed for the day, and when you stood up and turned to him, his face twisted in confusion. 

“Thanks,” you breathed, shooting him a polite smile and trying to keep your head down as you shouldered past him.

Before you could get there, he grabbed your elbow, his brow twisted in confusion. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” you lied, smiling at him again. It wasn’t convincing, and he made sure you knew that, but he released his grip on you and allowed you to climb the stairs in silence. He didn’t even bother you when you retreated to your room without a second word.

You planned on getting a few hours of sleep before your lectures for the day but the second you stepped foot into your dorm, your face was soaked in tears. Sobs wracked your body as you ripped your sweater off, tossing it in the hamper quickly. It served as nothing but a reminder, one that hurt more than it helped, so you pulled on a t-shirt in its place and crawled under your covers.

You didn’t fall asleep immediately. In fact, as the time grew later you could only think of Gwilym. As it passed nine o’clock, you realized he would have woken by now, and the thought of his reaction to waking alone only served to make you cry harder. It was one of life’s greater injustices, you finally decided when your tears had stopped, that you had done everything right and still managed to get yourself tangled in such a mess.

You fell asleep not much later and though you had fully intended to wake up for your lectures, it was well past three o’clock by the time you finally woke. You’d slept through all but one, all but Gwil’s. You weren’t sure you could face him, not yet, so you buried your face in your pillows and attempted to fall back asleep.

***

Days seemed to pass in a haze for both of you. It hardly seemed to matter to you that you hadn’t gone to Gwilym’s class all week long, and if it weren’t past the deadline, you would have dropped the class in a moment. You weren’t sure you could handle it, seeing him and acting like you were fine. The sight of him could have sent you keeling over, and you certainly knew that he had no interest in seeing you, so you allowed yourself to wallow in your pain.

Gwilym, however, forced himself to work through it. He was so _confused_. Had he misread signals? Read the situation wrong? Had he pressured you? His heart broke at the thought of you feeling pressured, but it hadn’t seemed that way. And he hadn’t even seen you, unable to clear the air.

Is this how it felt, he wondered, to love someone he couldn’t have? This deep and unrelenting anguish that ate at his chest until he felt completely empty? The burning loneliness, the hollowness he felt coming home knowing no one was waiting for him, least of all you? Yearning and want and sadness unlike anything he had ever felt before? Is this how it felt? Was he destined to feel sick at the thought of you for the rest of his life? Would it leave when you were no longer around?

No, he decided. Probably not. But it would fade. A sick part of him wondered if you hurt as much as he did. If you spent your nights eating alone and thinking of him and going to bed early in an effort to keep yourself as disconnected as possible. You had, but he had no way of knowing that.

You allowed yourself a few days to back off, only crawling out of your dorm room to go to your other classes, and on Friday, a whole week after you had been picked up by Gwil, Peter barged into your room after your classes had been let out. You had already burrowed yourself under your duvet, scrolling through your phone lazily when he forcefully closed your door behind him, dragging your desk chair toward your bed and sitting at your head, his face set in a hard glare.

Too shocked to respond, you just stared at him with wide eyes. Your friendship with Peter was almost tentative. Compared to your other friendships, you weren’t sure you’d call it that at all, so while bursting into your room was more common when he was struggling with his literacy homework, you were surprised to see him empty-handed.

“Get up,” he commanded.

Head spinning, you furrowed your brows at him. “I’m sorry?”

“You’ve been moping around for a week and laying in bed isn’t going to make you feel better, so get up. We’re getting dinner and you’re going to tell me why you were crying Monday morning, because I think it has a lot to do with the fact that you missed our Wednesday lunch and how you haven’t come to the library with me all week.”

You spluttered, too appalled to say anything. You hadn’t really expected Peter to remember that you were upset Monday morning, but everything else felt like a slap in the face. Had he looked forward to those lunches as much as you had? You had only started doing them because you had a class at the same time in the same building on Wednesdays, and he never worked on Wednesdays, so after the first time it had happened, it seemed to have stuck. As for the library, you couldn’t say you ever went _with_ him, but more often than not, you found him at the same table when you had a break between classes. You hadn’t gone to the library this week. 

“I’m sorry,” you said smally. 

Peter sighed, resting his chin in his hand as he looked at you in concern. “I know I’m not, like, a great friend or whatever,” he mumbled bashfully, “but you know I care about you, right?”

You didn’t. Not really, but you nodded once. “Yeah.”

He let out a relieved breath. “Please eat dinner with me. We can just do Postmates and I’ll even pay for it.” You nodded again. “O’Hara’s?” It was where you always ate on Wednesdays and you felt your heart ache a little bit as you sniffled and nodded. Peter frowned. “Let me go grab my wallet, okay?”

Momentarily, you wondered if Peter was just as lonely as you. After all, you seemed to be each others’ only friends on campus, but it had never occurred to you that Peter needed your friendship like you needed his. Even heavier than before, guilt weighed on your heart. By the time he returned back to your room, a candy bar in one hand and his wallet in the other, all you could manage was a watery laugh. He smiled over at you, tossing you the candy before sitting at the foot of your bed, crossing his legs casually. 

“So,” he broke, glancing down at his phone. “What happened?”

You were silent, eyes focused away from him as you considered the best route for this conversation. You could lie to Peter, easily. But what would that do for either of you? Would it ease the constant ache of your heart? How could he help you? You trusted him to not judge you, and oddly, you trusted him to not even tell anyone, so you rubbed your eyes with the heels of your hands and huffed, falling back on your pillows. “Don’t tell me I’m stupid, because I already know.” 

“I would never tell you that,” he fired back, setting his phone face down.

“And you have to promise not to tell anyone, okay?” He gave you a knowing look that made you chuckle humorlessly. “Right. So...Friday. You were gone and I lost my keycard sometime during the day.”

“Jesus,” he groaned. “On a Friday? So the office wasn’t even open?”

“That’s not even close to the worst part of this story,” you assured him, too afraid to look into his eyes. You sat up, tucking your legs against your chest and staring past him. “It was raining and I was walking home from my last lecture, and someone pulled up to me while I was walking—” you watched Peter’s face twist in horror and you rolled your eyes, stretching your legs out to kick his knee gently. “It was just Doctor Lee.”

“Lee. That’s your journalism professor, right?”

“He is,” you nodded, clearing your throat softly. “Anyway, he tried to bring me back here but I had lost my keycard, and I didn’t really have anywhere else to go, so…” you trailed off, shrugging, and Peter gaped at you.

“You went to his _house_? Does he have a dungeon?”

You laughed, shaking your head. “No. But he has a dog, and his name is Monty.”

“Christ,” he chuckled, scratching at the back of his neck. “Okay, so you stayed at his house for the weekend. What’s the deal?” He looked up at you only to see tears building in your eyes and you huffed, wiping them away. “Did you...y’know?” He asked quietly, as though he already knew the answer. You gave him a watery smile and a small shrug as if to say, _what can you do?_ Peter sighed gently, closing his eyes. “Oh, Y/N.”

“The worst part,” you said with a shaky voice, “is that it didn’t feel like something I could write off. It meant something to me and it did to him too, and I just left. I didn’t even wait for him to wake up.” You sniffled, clenching your eyes closed. Peter sighed gently, reaching to rub a soothing hand up your shin.

“How has he acted in class?” 

You looked at your friend bashfully. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since then.”

Peter gaped at you, slapping your leg. “You haven’t talked to him?” You shook your head, chewing your nail to keep yourself distracted. “Well, shit, Y/N! If he’s half as miserable as you’ve been, I can’t imagine not seeing you is making it better.” 

“I don’t even know if he wants to see me, Peter,” you sighed. “I mean, I think it meant something to him, but how could I possibly know that? He never said it.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “I don’t know Doctor Lee, but I know of him. You tell me if you think he’s the kind of guy that would sleep with one of his students without thinking about it.” That made you pause, your brows furrowing in thought. He really didn’t strike you as the type, but he had spent the whole weekend taking you by surprise. “It couldn’t have been a one-off for him, right?” 

“I guess I hadn’t really thought of that,” you admitted gently. 

Peter stood suddenly, as though he had been struck by a brilliant idea. “I’m taking you there.”

Your brows shot up, your head immediately shaking. “Oh, absolutely not. No. Bad idea. He doesn’t—”

“How do you _know_?” He asked. “You haven’t talked to him, you haven’t seen him. You’re fucking miserable, dude, you need to see him.”

“Peter, I don’t…” You couldn’t even think of an excuse. You didn’t know if he wanted to see you, but you knew you wanted to see him, and the way Peter was staring expectantly at you only made it more clear. What was the worst thing that could happen? He’d tell you to go home? So, finally, you said, “Okay.”

Peter grinned, tossing you the shoes you had kicked off at the door. “Okay, this is happening.”

***

Monty whined at Gwil’s feet, leaving the man to stare at him, unimpressed from the couch. “I’d really rather be left alone, if it’s all the same to you,” Gwilym sighed. The dog whined again and Gwil huffed, about to retreat to his bedroom when a knock sounded at the door.

Grunting, he stood from the couch, scrubbing over his beard as he crossed the room to swing the door open. You looked so sweet on his porch, timid, your cheeks bitten from the cold and tears scattering your lash line, clumping your lashes together and even though he was so _angry_ at you, he could help the ache in his heart. “Oh,” he sighed softly. “Darling, you look miserable. How did you get here?”

“Peter brought me,” you said smally, your voice thin. “Can I talk to you?”

He didn’t think about how furious he was, or the fact that apparently, Peter knew about you two. All he thought about was how good it felt to finally see your face. Five days could have passed for a lifetime and he felt ten years older after not even a week. He opened the door a bit wider and ushered you in, ignoring Monty’s excited yelp at the sight of you. Gwilym sighed heavily, sitting in the loveseat and gesturing you toward the couch. 

“I don’t know how you could possibly explain this, Y/N.” You were crying again. Quietly, but you forced your tears away with your sleeve. “Out of all the ways I had expected last weekend to end, god knows it went completely different. But I had believed we were on the same page, so you can only imagine how embarrassed I was when I woke up and you had selfishly left—”

“Don’t do that,” you finally spoke up, shaking your head. “Don’t act like you know why I left, like you know why I did what I did, because obviously you don’t.”

“Enlighten me, then,” he stressed, leaning back in his seat. You knew this look, his face glazed over and his countenance firm. This was how you knew him. He was playing Doctor Lee now and you could have rolled your eyes at the sight. “Give me a good explanation as to why you left.”

“For you!” You exclaimed. “Because you...you’re so good at what you do, Gwil,” you sighed, and the nickname was enough to make his heart soften. “And you love it. It would be selfish for me to risk that for you.”

“Who said you’re risking it?” He asked coolly.

“Like anyone is going to be thrilled by the prospect of you sleeping with one of your students,” you scoffed. “I did it for you.” 

“Who gives a fuck about me?” He asked incredulously.

“Me,” you replied meekly. “I do. I don’t do this kind of stuff. Ever. But you’re so you, and you make me feel so good and this weekend I forgot how lonely I am,” you wiped more tears from your cheeks, watching the way Gwil’s face turned down. “And I think I got in over my head, a little bit.”

“You think too much about me,” he admonished. “What do _you_ want?”

The answer was automatic. “You.” You drew in a shuddering breath. “But not if it’s going to hurt you.” He was quiet as you stared at him, scratching nervously as the seam of your jeans. “What do _you_ want?”

He laughed softly, shaking his head. “If you don’t know the answer to that question, you’re more dense than I imagined.” And even the teasing was enough to make your heart soar. “I am...so furious with you, you know that? You could have talked to me. Left a note. Anything.”

You let your head hang low, unable to defend yourself. He was right, of course. You heard the fabric of the loveseat ruffle as he stood, feet carrying him only a few steps until he stood in front of you. He crouched down, his blue eyes in clear view of yours and he looked like a breath of fresh air, so you drew in a soft breath.

“I’m so sorry, Gwilym.” You shook your head, gratefully allowing him to grab your hand.

“You’re here now, aren’t you?” He asked quietly. The soft smile he gave you was enough to finally quirk a real one on your own lips, and his smile only grew brighter. “There’s that smile,” he said gently, tentatively reaching out to cup your cheek. “I love that smile.”

You pressed your forehead against his, cupping his cheek with your own hand. “I don’t want you to…risk anything for me, Gwil.”

He pressed a gentle kiss against the corner of your mouth. “Y/N,” he breathed. “I’d risk _everything_ for you.”

It wasn’t quite the answer you were hoping for, but it still made your heart leap. You closed your eyes, his nose brushing softly over yours as you breathed in deeply. Gwilym made you feel right—whole—and breathing him in brought you more comfort than you had felt all week.

“I don’t want to be without you,” you sighed.

“Then don’t.”

You thought, maybe, it would really be that easy. After all, it was Gwilym. He made everything easy. He stared up at you so earnestly, so vulnerably. It was more than a simple statement; it was an invitation. The way his hand squeezed your eyes just a bit tighter, his brows tilted down just slightly, it made you bite your lip. What had changed, really? Gwilym was still your professor, there was still a chance, but something about the way he held you close made you think that you two would be fine. “I won’t,” you answered softly. “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t answer. His heart was racing too fast to process your apology again. Instead of replying, he pulled you toward him, leaning up to press your lips against his. Gwilym Lee quelled a fire in you that you hardly even knew burned, soothed something in you that had hurt for so long that you no longer recognized it, and perhaps there was a chance that this could all go downhill, but as long as you were with Gwil, even that didn’t sound so bad.


End file.
